CAN A WOMAN PRACTICE LAW OR HOLD ANY OFFICE IN ILLINOIS?
On pp. 145, 146, and 147 of this volume, we gave the proceedings in full in the Supreme Court of this State upon our application to be admitted to practice law, including the opinion of Judge Lawrence, the present learned Chief-Justice of that tribunal, denying the application on the sole ground that a woman could not be admitted to the bar or hold any office in Illinois. As soon after this opinion was announced as we could obtain a certified copy of the record, we placed it in the hands of the Hon. Matt. H. Carpenter, one of the ablest constitutional lawyers in the nation, with a view of obtaining a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Carpenter prepared and presented our petition for a writ of error, together with the record. The following is the indorsement upon the record, allowing the writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States:
CITATION TO THE STATE OF ILLINOIS TO APPEAR AT WASHINGTON.
The United States of America to the State of Illinois:—The State of Illinois is hereby cited and admonished to appear and be at the Supreme Court of the United States to be holden at Washington City in the District of Columbia, on the first Monday of December next, pursuant to a writ of error filed in the clerk's office of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, wherein Myra Bradwell is plaintiff in error, and the State of Illinois is defendant in error, to show cause, if any there be, why the judgment in the said writ of error mentioned should not be corrected, and speedy justice should not be done to the parties in that behalf.
Witness the Honorable Salmon P. Chase, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States this 16th day of August, a.d. 1870.
WRIT OF ERROR.
United States of America, ss. :
[ Seal ] The President of the United States, To the Honorable the Judges of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois—Greeting:
Because, in the record and proceedings, as also in the rendition of the judgment of a plea which is in the said Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, before you, or some of you, being the highest court of law or equity of the said State in which a decision could be had in the said suit in the matter of the application of Myra Bradwell, of Cook County, Illinois, for a license to practice law in the courts of said State, wherein was drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision was against their validity; or wherein was drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, said State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and the decision was in favor of such their validity; or wherein was drawn in question the construction of a clause of the Constitution, or of a treaty, or statute of, or commission held under, the United States, and the decision was against the title, right, privilege, or exemption, specially set up or claimed under such clause of the said Constitution, treaty, statute, or commission, a manifest error hath happened, to the great damage of the said Myra Bradwell, as by her complaint appears. We being willing that error, if any hath